Stripped Down Read online

  “Miss Nicola,” I greeted, spotting the shift of her gaze as she glanced at Nadine.

  “Mr. Carelli.” She tugged her clutch purse between her hands when I smiled at her, and that twisting sensation in my gut intensified. “I have some business I need to discuss with you about the center and the renovations.” Another slip of her gaze to Nadine, then to my office door before she looked at me. But even then, she didn’t linger on my face. “It’s urgent.”

  That got my attention and had me trying to push down the worry I felt collecting in my chest. “Very well,” I told her, moving her away from my office and toward another bank of elevator doors across from reception. “Nadine, I’ll be in the private quarters upstairs.”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I hold your calls?”

  “Please do,” I told her, helping Sammy toward the top-floor elevators.

  “Where are you…” she started, still keeping a death grip on her bag.

  “There’s more privacy upstairs.” Sammy followed my motions as I withdrew a key and disengaged the lock pad to call the elevator. “No one will bother us up there.” She didn’t return my smile or react to the wink I sent her. The worry doubled as I hit the button again, willing the doors to open.

  Sammy walked into the elevator without an invitation, keeping her arms crossed and her back straight as we rode up. Through the glass around us, we had a perfect view of the city skyline. Manhattan loomed around us, lit up like Christmas and New Year’s all at once just from the building lights and traffic below. But Sammy didn’t seem to see anything at all. Her stare was vacant, distracted, something that bothered me more than it should have.

  “Here we are,” I said when the doors opened. I ushered her into the penthouse, toward the leather sectional at the back of the room.

  This was no office, no boardroom, simply a place where we entertained. A bar ran the length of one corner in the back of the room, and several seating areas were intermittently placed around the penthouse. Two hallways in the front and back of the area led to private rooms, bathrooms, and a small kitchenette, but there were no desks and no conference tables. Everything was luxurious—from the marble tiles, lush leather, and high-end fabric of the furniture and area rugs, to the ornate woodwork and modern gold fixtures along the windows and doors. This was a place meant to entice clients and intimidate enemies.

  Sammy was neither. But from how she carried herself, how stiffly she walked next to me, I wasn’t sure what I should consider her.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I asked, walking to the bar, but I stopped short when Sammy held up her hand, shaking her head with a decidedly sharp movement. “Is there a problem?”

  “I just want to get this over with,” she said, nodding to the sectional. When I didn’t move, Sammy stared at me, narrowing her eyes like she expected more from me.

  “What exactly is it you want to get over?” I had my guesses, but I wouldn’t voice them.

  If I said them, they might come true. Couldn’t have that.

  “This,” Sammy said, retrieving an envelope from her bag. She offered it to me but didn’t let me take it. Instead, she slipped it onto the table, pushing it forward like she couldn’t stomach the idea of our fingers touching. “This should more than cover the cost of the building and the renovations. I would like to buy my way out of our arrangement.”

  There was a shake in her fingers that I didn’t miss. The tremble moved up her arm, and I swear I caught it twitching across her mouth as she stepped back, gaining distance from the table and the check that lay between us like a bomb. I hoped whatever my expression was, it hid the jackhammering of my heart and the sinking feeling that made me sick to my stomach. This was coming at me out of left field, and it made no sense. Something had set her off since the time we were together, with me deep inside her, ready to take her completely, then that phone call and the mad dash two hours away from the city.

  She watched me, seeming to draw strength from the small envelope on the table. The longer it rested there between us, the straighter Sammy’s shoulders got and the more confident she became. “Do you have anything to say?” she asked me, uncurling her arms to rest them at her sides.

  “Plenty.”

  It was all I could say, and it was the truth, but I held back, reminding myself what I’d done to her in the past and the promise I’d made to Sammy. I’d do anything for her. Even listen when she wanted to walk away from me.

  Instead of arguing when she narrowed her eyes, I held up my hands, hoping to calm her before things got out of hand. I nodded toward the sofa, relaxing only when Sammy eased to the opposite side of the sectional.

  I followed her, unbuttoning my jacket before I sat, leaning against the armrest with one arm draped along the back of the sofa and my legs apart. “Now,” I said, sizing her up, noting how stiffly she sat, how she held her mouth in a hard line and curled her fingers against her clutch. “Tell me what this is about.” Her grip tightened, and I held up a hand, hoping to calm her. “Please.”

  She swallowed once, back straight, chin moving up, already defiant. “My uncle knows we’ve been seeing each other.”

  Some of my worry eased, but I didn’t let it show. “Ah.”

  Sammy was loyal to the old priest, something I understood. He’d raised her. That mean bastard was the only family she’d ever known. He wouldn’t take us being together well. It made sense that he’d lay the guilt on her and, being a dutiful niece, she’d listen when he told her to end things.

  “So,” I said, tapping my thumb against the back of the sectional. “He found out about my helping you with the center and doesn’t like it. That forfeits our arrangement, Sammy. There’s no need to pay me off.”

  “No,” she said, letting some of the hardness ease from her features, though not for long. She glanced once at me, then rested her bag in her lap, laying her palms flat against it. “Uncle Pat doesn’t want you involved…doesn’t want us to have any contact. He’s adamant and…wants…to buy the building and…”

  “What do you want?” I knew the answer. I’d read it in her body the night before, when I touched her, when I felt how tightly she wrapped herself around my fingers, around my cock.

  She wanted me. She wanted me touching her, tasting her. That reaction, that passion, that sweet, warm wetness, none of it could be faked.

  When she didn’t answer, I leaned forward, watching how tense she became. She quickly squeezed her eyes closed and held her breath as I sat next to her. “I don’t care what the priest wants. I want to know what you want, bella.”

  “That… It doesn’t matter.” She stiffened when I touched her arm, but she didn’t push me away. “Johnny…”

  “You want me.”

  Sammy kept her eyes closed as I watched her, the profile of that beautiful face cast in shadow against the low penthouse lighting and the cityscape outside the expanse of windows around us. She leaned into me when I rested my forehead against her temple and kissed her there.

  “I’ve wanted you since I was a boy.”

  “It’s not that simple.” She turned, finally looking at me. “We can’t have the things we want just because we want them. There are always other considerations.”

  “Not for us.” This time when I touched her arm, Sammy pulled away.

  “Even for us.” Sammy leaned back, and something descended over her features then, a wall, a veil that told me she would keep herself from anything that made her feel what she wanted for me. “Do this for me,” she said, her voice strong but strangled, as though she hated every syllable she uttered. “It’s the least you can do for me.”

  My body recoiled at her words just as surely as if she’d punched me. She spotted the reaction I couldn’t hide. It was in the wince she released, how she moved her hand, as though she thought of comforting me but then changed her mind in the same second.

  Turning, I leaned my forearms on my knees, threading my fingers together, and let the guilt cover me. It burned and poured over every inch of my b
ody, but I welcomed it as the memory of Sammy, so young, so beautiful, her face flushed from her tears, her eyes red and puffy, rushed to the front of my mind.

  “I still love you,” she promised as I walked away from her. It had been over a year since I’d first broken her heart. She was older, even more beautiful, and she still hadn’t let me go.

  It took all that I had inside me not to say the words back. She was everything to me then. But I couldn’t keep her safe and keep her mine. Not with my father’s enemies closing in. Tony DeAngelo had sent his crew to burn down one of my father’s factories when Papa finally chose a side and it wasn’t his. Four of his men died. Two of the janitor’s sons had been killed in the fire, neither one of them older than twelve. Family didn’t matter to these assholes. I couldn’t keep her safe, not as powerless as I was at twenty.

  Sammy’s chin shook as I stared down at her, thick, fat tears clinging to her long lashes. Each one acid on my skin.

  “I don’t love you, Sammy. And I never will.”

  She stood there in her pink dress, waiting for me to laugh and say I didn’t mean it. She would have stood there all night, outside that club with the lowest level of humanity waiting for a fix or attention they’d never deserve or need. But Sammy was better than those people drinking and drugging in that bar. She was better than me, doing my father’s business inside it. She always would be.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, wiping her face dry.

  That was when Olivia McMurry approached the front entrance, and I took the woman for the opportunity she was. “Hey, baby,” I called to her, disgusted by her cheap perfume and the stiff texture of her hair from too much product that scratched against my neck when she hugged me.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said, slipping her arms around my neck.

  “Here ya go, kid,” I told Sammy, handing her a fifty, not bothering to look away from the overdone girl in my arms as I spoke. “Make sure you get a cab home.”

  Of course, she hated me then. She’d gone on hating me for years. I couldn’t blame her. Even if I had a good reason, I’d still destroyed all the good we’d had together.

  “You still haven’t forgiven me.” It wasn’t a question, and Sammy didn’t respond. I went on looking down at my hands, noticing nothing at all but the smell of her perfume and how I wanted to erase everything in the world but her and me and the feel of our bodies coming together.

  “Please, Johnny,” she said, sounding exhausted. “This is what I need.”

  “You need him to get his way?”

  “I need peace.” She lowered her head, rubbing her neck before she exhaled and stood, taking a few slow steps away from the sectional.

  “You…you never told me the third thing, Sammy.”

  She paused, lowering her head, and for a second, I thought she might stop. I followed her, my steps increasing when she moved to the elevator and hit the button. “Tell me about the third reason you fell for me.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, hitting the button a second time before she glanced up at the numbers above the car.

  “Because I can list a million why I fell for you.”

  Sammy glanced over her shoulder, not quite staring at me but not looking away either. She rested a palm against the wall, still waiting for the elevator to return, and I didn’t bother to tell her it wouldn’t come without my key.

  “One,” I started, taking a small half step, careful not to move too quickly. “The way you cry at the same parts of the same books you’ve read a dozen times.”

  She turned farther, finally facing me, but stepped back.

  “Two. How loyal you are to the people who mean the most to you, even the selfish assholes you can’t see are trying to control you. No one is as loyal as you are, Sammy.” I took another step.

  She moved back, hitting the wall, her hand coming up to keep me at a distance.

  “Three, four, and five. How devoted you are to your beliefs. How passionate you are about the things you love. How you show that passion with everything inside you.”

  Sammy didn’t speak. She didn’t argue when I held her face, ready to devour her with one kiss.

  “Six. How I know you love me as much as I love you. How I know when I kiss you, you’ll kiss me back because it’s what you want, and you’ll mean it because you don’t know how to do anything half-assed.”

  She let me kiss her, mouth soft and open, compliant as I demanded. Sammy leaned into me, kissing me back, clinging to me as I took everything she offered. It only took a second for her to push away those self-constructed walls, forgetting whatever it was her uncle had said that brought her here. One kiss and another and I had my Sammy back, returning what I gave her, giving me what I wanted.

  “There she is,” I said, slipping my fingers into her hair, mouth moving down her neck. “Are you back now?”

  She released a long, breathless pant, like she was trying to control her breathing as she gripped my collar. “I’ve always been yours.” She sounded winded and a little drunk.

  I didn’t care; I took what she offered and consumed every morsel. “Turn around.”

  Something dark and wicked shifted in her eyes, and I grinned, liking that look on her face. The devil surfacing in the angel’s gaze before Sammy turned, leaning against me as I moved her hair away from her neck, holding it back in my fist before I kissed along her spine.

  “This skin,” I said, gripping her hip, loving how she arched against me. How she knew to move with me just how I wanted. “This body…” Sammy bent her head back, leaning into the feeling of my mouth on her neck and my free hand over her stomach, pressing her tight against my hips. “Please, bella, don’t ever take this away from me.”

  “I can’t…”

  Whatever excuse she had ready, I didn’t want to hear. I only wanted her right now. Right here. And Sammy seemed to know it. She stopped speaking when I kissed her neck, curling my arms around her waist, moving my hands over her body like I needed to touch every inch of her.

  “Don’t tell me no,” I said, brushing her hair away again to get at her zipper. “Not tonight.” Her expression was tense, as though she held her breath, needed to see what I’d do next before she could exhale. I lowered her zipper and pulled her dress down over her shoulders, pushing it to the floor, that tension evaporating. “You can’t say no, Sammy,” I told her, kissing her skin, licking her spine when I unfastened her bra and threw it to the floor. “Not when your body is so primed for me.” She shook against my fingers when I teased her nipples, letting loose a long, breathy moan as I pinched them between my fingers. “Not when I know you’re wet for me. You’re ready for me.” Sammy didn’t argue when I moved my right hand over her ribs, tickling her stomach, slipping my fingers under her thong to cup her, my dick getting thicker, harder when I felt the slippery wetness of her slick pussy. “That’s for me, bella? All that is just for me, si?”

  She kept silent, breathing growing ragged until I slipped a finger inside her, making her arch against me. She reached up to grab my neck and pulled me down to kiss her. “Johnny…”

  “You want me, bella? Say so.”

  “I…want you. I want you now.”

  “Good,” I told her, turning her, holding her close as I walked us both back to the sectional. “Because I want you so much, I can’t see straight.” Cupping one breast, I kissed Sammy, slipping my tongue deep, holding her thigh on my hip as she moved against me.

  She paused when I pulled away from her, a small frown on her face breaking through the lust and heat as I let her leg fall from my hand. It didn’t stay there long.

  “Turn around, Sammy, and bend over.”

  It took her a second to think about what I said before she moved, hurrying to situate herself over the arm of the sectional and pull down her thong as I tore off my jacket and tie, untucking my shirt to pull myself from my shorts and pants.

  We hurried like two kids. Her leaning forward, waiting, ready; me holding myself and her hip as I angled
to meet her from behind until we were together and I slipped inside her, moving slowly, groaning against the sensation of all that heat and tightness I sank into.

  “Holy hell…” I muttered, overwhelmed by feeling as I moved. I wanted this to last all night. I wanted nothing more than to be inside Sammy and stay there forever. But I had to move, had to make sure she felt as good as I did. So, I bent her forward, thrusting deep as I slipped my hand around to cup her, teasing her clit, grunting against the feel of her tightening around me and wetting my fingers at the same time.

  “Johnny…ah… That’s good…so good…”

  I could have died right there, deep inside this woman, buried in her, with the smell of her around me, touching her, wanting nothing more than to keep this sensation from never ending. Maybe I would have, as long as she’d have me. Sammy rocked back, and I hurried at the sound of her breathing, the little noises she made after just a few minutes telling me she was close.

  “This?” I asked her, loving how she nodded as though speech weren’t possible. And I moved faster, with my hips, with my hands, gripping her sweet ass, pounding into her, teasing her clit, until wetness covered my fingers and my dick, and Sammy cried out, my name from her lips like a surrender she probably didn’t realize she made.

  She went limp against the arm of the sectional, and I held her shoulders, angling deep until she arched back, the sensation not complete until Sammy tightened around me, squeezing me. I felt the rise of my climax shoot through me like an electric current.

  We staggered away from each other and then back again, curling onto the sofa, naked, exhausted, with Sammy against my chest, her soft, warm breath tickling my chest. I’d never felt more at peace or more worried about what would come later.

  The room had gone quiet as our breathing returned to normal, and the only sound I could make out was the low hum coming from the fridge at the back of the room. My entire consciousness was filled with Sammy—the smell of her sweet perfume and the delicious tang of her skin, the warming pant of her breath and the slow tickle of her nails as she ran circles along my ribs. We said nothing. Did nothing but lie there and let the moment take us. It had been ten years since we’d been this way, since we’d been together, and the tingle of the afterglow felt like a high we couldn’t get enough of.